A fandom event dedicated to the strange, otherworldly, and inexplicable in Middle-earth and beyond. Running July 13th-19th, 2026. Tracking #esotolkienweek and #esotolkienweek2026
Ooh, you got plany of time! Simply a gentle bounce upon the dash to remind anyone interested in magic, weirdness, and sundry oddities that Esoteric Tolkien Week, your one and only fandom event for celebrating all of the above in Arda and beyond, will be kicking off for the second year on July 13th, 2026 and lasting until July 19th (although later submissions are welcome).
Whether you want to get a head start on dreaming up your wild masterpiece or simply dabble your toes:
Optional prompt list here
Non-optional event guidelines here
An ao3 collection for anyone posting there is forthcoming, probably opening around the beginning of July. If you already have something finished and want to share it as part of the event, we ask for organization's sake that you hold off for the moment rather than adding it to the 2025 collection.
That's about it for now! As always, feel free to make any pertinent inquiries via the askbox, through messages, or in the replies to any post tagged "housekeeping."
Looking forward to seeing all your wonderful works in two months. Onwards to strangenesses great and small!
2026 Esoteric Tolkien Week prompts have landed! As before, each day is composed of a place, an action, and an object—feel free to use some, all, or none as you see fit; they are inspirational, not obligatory. Further event guidelines can be found here for your delectation as you begin your idea-brewing process. And as always, feel free to reach out with any questions, concerns, or world-altering secrets in the meantime.
That's right, Esoteric Tolkien Week, your center for all things strange, mystical, inexplicable, and unfathomed in Arda and beyond, is back for round two! We are open to all types and ratings of fanwork, and are eager to welcome returners and new faces alike. A few bits of useful tattle for the moment:
Further information and event guidelines can be found here
Prompts will be released by the end of the month (March 31st, 2026)
Event planned to run July 13th - 19th, 2026
An ao3 collection will open closer to the run date—if you have any work hanging around that you'd like to submit now, or just want to get inspired, you can find the small but mighty 2025 collection here
And that's about it for now! Feel free to jump in the askbox with any burning questions you come up with in the meantime, or any other words that need sharing.
Looking forward to creating with you again in this second lap of ours 💫 Welcome, or welcome back.
very belated entry to @esotolkienweek for the prompt "forest"
For this I chose the fate of Húrin and Morwen from the Book of Lost Tales, one of the oldest versions of the children of Húrin. Here they’re known as Úrin and Mavwin.
The Book of Lost Tales version of the Children of Húrin ends on quite a strange note Húrin and Morwen; they do not reunite at the grave (though Morwen has a fascinating scene there which I have another post about) but instead haunt the woods outside Doriath together, mourning their children. I want to make a full board version but I liked this part so much I wanted to make this too!
And so the very first Esoteric Tolkien Week comes to an end. We are so grateful to everyone who participated, whether by submitting your (awesome!) creations or supporting and reblogging from those who did. This is the very first event that I've run, and I'm being entirely sincere when I say that each one of your contributions means the world to me. I'm just the mod—the real work is done by all of you, and I couldn't be happier to have been the beneficiary of your skills and imagination.
Logistics
Late submissions are welcome at any time—please just use the tag and @ this blog in the post body so we don't miss your work
The ao3 collection will remain open for anyone who wants to crosspost or add new pieces
Any feedback on what you liked or what didn't work for you this past week is appreciated, so feel free to drop us a line in the replies or via the askbox! We plan to run this event next year, all things permitting, so we want to make it the best it can be :)
Once again, thank you all so very much for your creativity, enthusiasm, and patience as we work out our muddles. If you enjoyed this event and are slavering for more of my dubious organizational skills, consider checking out the second product of my overweening hubris, Tolkien Siblings Week, which will run for the first time this November!
The chief citadel of Maedhros was upon the Hill of Himring, the Ever-cold; and that was wide-shouldered, bare of trees, and flat upon its summit, surrounded by many lesser hills.
(I'm still in doubt if Himring counts as a mountain?! In any case, I totally see Himring as the Andes, so let's say it is in my headcanons✨️ Also, sorry for posting everything out of order😭)
Can't believe I'm late again, but here it is! My first contribution for this event. As a part of my "Tolkien, but make it latino" series, I chose São Tomé das Letras to represent a part of forests in Tolkien world!
Boromir | G | 0.8k | @esotolkienweek 2025 day 4: rivers and vessels | AO3
A shattering cry pierced the paths of the wind. Clear and sharp, like a call echoing down the mountainsides, it rent the wind with its mighty voice.
It is the horn of Gondor, the lesser winds murmured, circling low to listen. It is the captain. He is outnumbered and nearly overcome. Who will aid him?
The south wind, listening, sped the horn’s voice over the grey waters of the Anduin and into the wide, empty lands about it, into the running grasses of the Wold and the withered slopes of the Brown Lands, into the tamarisk and terebinth gardens of Ithilien and the watch in the wilderness upon Mordor. In the fields of the Wold, rabbits pricked their ears and twitched their whiskers; loping wolves stopped and sniffed the air, scenting death. Even to the walls of Minas Tirith did the horn’s voice rush, falling and breaking like the tide upon the white stones of the Tower of the Guard.
The captain calls for aid, the winds pleaded. Will none aid him? Will none answer his cry?
But there came no answer from the empty lands about, and the horn fell silent.
Dead, the winds whispered, sorrowing. The captain is dead. None came to aid him.
The land cried out in answer, rock and turf and tree and root: Who now shall guard us? Who shall keep us from the Marrer? Shall all become barren and ruined? Ruin, ruin shall be our end!
The Windlord wheeled high overhead, listening to the weeping of the wind as it passed beneath his wings and turning his keen eye to the river snaking beneath him. A slender boat slipped into the water, laden with swords and cloven helms. A man slept unwaking in the midst of them, marked with many wounds, his hands crossed over his breast, a broken sword and cloven horn laid upon his knees. His hair lay like raven feathers over his shoulders, and a belt of golden leaves gleamed at his waist, glinting beneath the sun.
The Windlord rose upon the currents and winged away, crying in the tongue of eagles: The captain has fallen. Harry any who would bring dishonor upon him. As he has guarded you, guard him. The lesser eagles took up the cry, and the hawks, listening, cried out to the falcons. A flock of many birds rose and wheeled over the river, a winged guard to guard his passage, their sharp eyes trained upon the lands about for any who would hinder the last journey of the captain.
The north wind, drawing away from the boat so that it might pass over the falls unhampered, rose to a howl and wept. And the lesser winds, listening, took up its lament: The captain has fallen. Make safe his way.
The west wind went keening through the reeds of the Anduin and the grasses of the Mark, and the grasses murmured in their rustling voices, the news passing amongst them in a rippling wave. Once he walked here beneath moonlight and starlight, but now no more shall he roam. Only his memory shall walk here, fading with the dawn.
Field mice and hares pricked their ears, catching the whispers of the grasses as they bent in grief, and word passed among the small creatures, and then to the great creatures. Who now shall protect us? Who shall keep us from the wrath of Mordor?
The south wind ran light-footed upon the river, guiding the boat gently upon the waters, over fall and foaming pool, borne tenderly upon the shoulders of the river. Through marsh and fen, through fields and hills, the boat slipped silent as the footfalls of the moon as it rode pale and slender overhead. Reeds dragged clutching at its sides, and fish slipped silver through the shadows in its wake like mailed guards.
No more shall he come with the dawn, no more to guard the Tower of the Sun.
Through the ruined city he passed, a grey dream glimmering beneath the moonlight. Deep he waded but he did not founder, for the south wind cradled him in its arms and drew him gently past. Over waters wide and swift the wind bore him, deep treading, swift pacing, and he passed silent through the sleeping world of Men, a dreamer unwaking. The river deepened and splintered and the sea washed at its feet, and the cries of gulls came on the wings of the wind, and the winds gathered and blew.
And under the light of the watchful stars, Boromir, son of Denethor, passed into the fathomless embrace of the sea.
The River Calling (for Esotolkien Week 2025, Day 4)
She could hear them sometimes still - River Woman’s River Daughters calling, calling, calling…
In the winter the snow lay thickly over everything like a heavy shroud and the river slowed, its edges iced, its waters frigid. And she sat frigid too in the house, in the house that her husband built. The fire in the hearth kept the vessels of water from freezing, but she still slowed with the cold, still felt the winter sleep creep upon her, just as she had in the days before - nay, the years before - nay, the ages before…
When she dozed she heard their voices, drifting from the river, through the trees, over the snow, carried, ghost-like, on the chill air. They were singing a low and mournful song. She felt her ears prick and an urge to sing back, but Tom was here now and he was whistling and his whistling eclipsed their voices, slowly moving in and blocking them out, like the moon covering over the sun…
In the summer the thunderstorms came. Every evening they came, every evening for three weeks. The lightning flashing so bright it lit up the sky, the thunder so loud you could feel it in your bones. Then the downpour - coming down harder than ever. She stepped over the threshold, onto the mossy floor so full with water already that it gushed over. Already little rivulets of water were forming and flowing downhill towards the river…
Then again the River Daughters’ calling, calling, calling. But not silently this time - fiercely. Crying out so fiercely their voices rivaled the thunder: Sister, we miss you! Bombadil, we curse you! Return her, return, return!
The thunder clapped, the lightning tore apart the sky, the wind shook the trees so hard their leaves were ripped loose and flew madly through the squall. And the rain came down so hard. Goldberry felt herself loosen. She felt a great urge to spill to the ground and flow to the river. Laughter bubbled up from her throat, then she shaped her mouth to call out -
But then there was Tom and he was singing, “There’s my pretty lady! Into the house with thee! Never mind the ruckus from that weedy, shady creek. Come my pretty little lady - back into the house with me!"
"But Ulmo coming up the river laid a deep sleep upon them and heavy dreams; and the trouble of the dreams remained after they awoke, but neither said aught to the other, for their memory was not clear, and each believed that Ulmo had sent a message to him alone. But unquiet was upon them ever after, and doubt of what should befall, and they wandered often alone in untrodden lands, seeking far and wide for places of hidden strength; for it seemed to each that he was bidden to prepare for a day of evil, and to establish a retreat, lest Morgoth should burst from Angband and overthrow the armies of the North."
- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion, "Of the Return of the Noldor"
@esotolkienweek day 4: lakes & rivers, sleep ⇢ FINROD & TURGON BY AELIN-UIAL
[ID: a picspam made up of 12 images in shades of brown, blue, and green.
1: Branches over water / 2: A cave with column-like mineral formations and a shallow pool of water in the center. Light comes in from an unseen opening in the ceiling / 3: Brown and green italicized serif text on a black background reads "And when again thirty years had passed, Turgon son of Fingolfin left Nevrast where he dwelt and sought out Finrod his friend upon the island of Tol Sirion, and they journeyed southward along the river," / 4: A person's hand brushing the surface of green water. They have dark brown skin / 5: Flowers bending down to touch rippling water / 6: A starry night sky, with the brown clouds of a nebula or galaxy / 7: A duck swimming in a shallow, sunlit stream / 8: The lower half of Kenyette Barnes's face. She has brown skin and long golden-brown hair in dreadlocks / 9: White buildings against a pale blue sky / 10: Same format as Image 3, but the text reads "being weary for a while of the northern mountains; and as they journeyed night came upon them beyond the Meres of Twilight beside the waters of Sirion, and they slept upon his banks beneath the summer stars." / 11: The tree-lined shore of a river seen through mist / 12: Steep mountain peaks covered in snow //End ID]
"Thus it chanced in the waning of the year that Aredhel came to the south of Himlad, and passed over Celon; and before she was aware she was enmeshed in Nan Elmoth. In that wood in ages past Melian walked in the twilight of Middle-earth when the trees were young, and enchantment lay upon it still. But now the trees of Nan Elmoth were the tallest and darkest in all Beleriand, and there the sun never came; and there Eöl dwelt, who was named the Dark Elf."
- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion, "Of Maeglin"
@esotolkienweek day 3: forests, get lost ⇢ AREDHEL IN NAN ELMOTH
[ID: a moodboard made up of nine images in shades of cool green, mostly dark in hue.
1: A misty forest, the floor covered in green moss / 2: A painting of a bow and quiver of arrows lying on the ground / 3: A crescent moon and bright star or planet between trees / 4: The soaring ceiling of a cave. Uneven light shows hanging mineral formations / 5: South sudanese-austrailian model Adut Akech lying down as if collapsed in a long, pale pink dress. Green draperies surround her / 6: Small white flowers blooming amid shrubbery / 7: A stone torii gate, grown over with moss and surrounded by trees / 8: A painting of a deer surrounded by three white hounds. Although all looks peaceful, the dogs are attacking the deer, whose expression is calm and resigned / 9: Adut Akech, this time wearing a green dress with long puffy sleeves and sequins on the front, and covered with a netted veil. She has dark brown skin and short hair, and looks at the viewer with a neutral, serious expression //End ID]
Merry outside of Time - An Esoteric Tolkien Week Fic 🌌🥀
@esotolkienweek Day 3 - Forests, Crowns, and Get lost... Or found?
A fae!reader story where the cosmos opens itself to reveal a different dimension to a certain hobbit, and as he stands on the boundary between Matter and Beyond, he is tasked with choosing between the realm of Time and the realm of Eternity.
Length: 2k
Note: I was inspired by Lord Dunsany's "King of Elfland's Daughter" for this piece. I wanted to tackle some sort of spiritual mysticism even beyond what we see in LOTR's Middle-Earth, and also contribute to this incredibly cool event, so I'm glad (and shy) to post this for Day 3! I'm linking the AO3 page in case anyone would like to drop by over there 💙
I also made a fey/elfin themed playlist for this. Story under the cut!
In ligaments of silvery blue, starlight shone upon the moon-speckled meadow through the veil of enchantment that separates the realm of Time from that of Eternity. A great configuration of invisible grey that mortal eyes cannot apprehend cascades ever so brightly in the Space between Matter and Beyond, shimmering with sparkles from distant stars that, having drifted from the material plane in lambent threads of light, have become one and the same with the susurrant incantations that codify the veil into existence.
It was through the thinning veil, on a moonless night of the likes you have not seen in eons, that he came to you.
You have been waiting blindly, for, even if you were to study the movements of planets and stars, as the elven sages tethered to Arda did, the whims of the forces at play could not be glimpsed at from outside the realm of Time. And while your gaze was more keen in piercing through the veil than that of most of your kin, and your patience has survived the passage of the seasons just outside your reach… At last, both of your spirits spirits felt the same gravitylike resonance stretching across the space between you.
Following the captive starlight, hairy feet opened a passage through the dark roots of hunched trees encircling the valley that you have made your garden, where buds of bluebells and blossoming apple thorns were forever in bloom, watered by the dew of the sun and the moon, which permeates in its fulgence all that is Hither. Thus, you saw him just as he saw you.
And both knew.
His steps halted, still underneath the cover of the trees, hesitating over the boundary between Matter and Beyond, the one that kept Time and Eternity apart. A dazed shine overtook the eyes peering up between pale, toussled locks of thick hair, which hid the red of his ears and cheeks from sight, but there was no stupefaction in that gaze. It was not the likelihood of this encounter that you saw him silently question, but his part in it.
You slid close. He did not step back. You towered over his head. From below your attentive gaze, he kept still, small and breathless as the vapors of your dress coiled round his arms. His features were soft and open; his gaze, clear. Simple was the cut of his clothes, and clean their hue; a pale sleeping shirt clung to his shoulders in a neat drap, and dark trousers tightly knitted around his waist slipped down his hips to brush at his calves.
"I've seen you…"
His voice was diaphanous, colored by the weightlessness radiating from the border between Hither and Thither.
"…In my dreams… In…"
"Memories," you completed, and his eyes widened, for you had given voice to what was in his mind, even if it refused to believe it. "Dreams of what was to transpire. Recollections of the future engendered at the time that you were born."
Wonder danced across his features. Like the flapping of butterfly wings, the ends of his lips tremored, and his long eyelashes fluttered, blinking over his cheeks as he drank in your next words. "Your soul remembers, for time is not endowed with linearity outside of the realm you have drifted from."
His chin tilted down as the boundary hummed underneath his feet; it was the dabbing melody of the figments of starlight caught in the untouchable veil, buzzing with ancient spellwork, enveloping with its hailing notes his senses. Thoughts of Earth and earthly matters crossed his face; fancies of time, and change, and restlessness, pulling at him from behind while the echo of the stars lured him forward. "My realm…"
"The place you departed from, and were you may return, only if you are to refuse this meeting."
Though you did not say it aloud, he heard it; his name, beckoned forth. And despite never having heard it, he knew yours as well.
Meriadoc looked up.
"Your voice… It is in my head. It has resided there for longer than I wanted to accept… For I did not know who it belonged to, or with what purpose it accompanied me during my longest hours, when my thoughts would have me think it was just a waking dream. I do not understand this Destiny… Or if the beating of my heart in this very moment can even be considered a product of destiny, and not one of lunacy."
You listened intently, then asnwered. "There is no definite purpose to the will of the powers that be. Nor is there a lack of purpose to it. It is simply the natural course towards all that which is existent flows. It is in our nature that your heart would answer to the pounding of mine."
"Do not worry for the direction in which your feet are being swept off to, as that is the trajectory that your steps shall rightfully follow. Let the call of the fates do what it will with you. Let that desire growing inside manifest. It is an echo of a higher design."
Meriadoc listened, but he did not move. You were speaking as if you could see underneath his skin, and read the runes making up his soul. It froze him in place. The unspoken truth was loud, anchored in the singing of the boundary, and he voiced it in apprehensive tones.
"If I take even a single step forward… I shall not return to the place and people that bore me…"
"Such is the case."
"And if I leave in this very moment, I should not expect to see you again?"
No words could deliver the answer better than the silence you replied with, but desperately, he insisted.
"Will I still hear your voice? Will you disappear? Will I ever remember?"
"I do not know."
His eyes dismayed as he heard you speak, and you retreated. "But it is not in the workings of this world to afford passage between one realm and another twice within a mortal lifetime."
"But," Meriadoc said. "it allowed us to meet in this very moment… To what end?"
You turned to face him once more, bearing yourself with solemnity.
"To the end in which love is consummated between those that listen to each other's calling, and see each other's presence from across the Boundary of the Realms."
Your stretched out your hand. He did not reject the touch of your fingertips, which brushed against the tactile, pliable skin that outlined his jaw and chin, so differently warm, and soft, unlike your own. With your cold touch, a shiver went down his form. In spite of themselves, his eyelids drooped, lulled by the errant magic sending sparks of warmth through his bloodstream.
"And of this new, unknown realm," you resumed, "Meriadoc, you would be the most cherished being. Neither decaying nor fading, and held by the way of all things that dwell where the shadow of Time does not dare trespass."
"The love of one of the fey…" he whispered to himself, gaze foggy with dreams of for-ever—and-ever—more. "Is that what would be bestowed upon me if I concede?"
The word 'fey' caught your attention, and you smiled at the terms mortals bandied amongst them when referring to your kind. Not even the Eldar spoke of you as such; in truth, they talked of you even less than mortals did, since your people, and your realm, was not a product of the melodious Song, but of its pauses, its interludes, its silences.
"Is that not enough?" you asked, while your fingers travelled high, and massaged the soft loops of golden hair coiling round his features, provoking blossoms of sweet williams to sprout from the ether and braid themselves atop his head in a crown of pure whites and rich reds. Their sweet fragrance lingered, tickling his nose in the same manner that your gestures stirred the tide of his emotions within his chest. "To be treasured beyond the measure of Time, past the foreseeable end of Matter. That is the fate that awaits you, if you would have it. If you would have us reach that end and start."
With one hand, you made that crown flower, while with the other, your palm pressed against his heart. You knew not of seduction, for it was needless to your kind; you knew only of your truth, which was what you spoke as you savored its fulfillment. Such honesty could not be concealed. It reverberated in his bones, and the notion of minutes and hours and days slipped off his conscious thought, as the seasons abandon the fields, akin to the last glimmer of twilight fading as the sleeping night stretched its cool fingers. Quietude and constancy filled his heart, the gifts of the realm of fey-like creatures. In his mind's eye, he envisioned you as an ever-present fragrance, a forever lingering balm, your affections and attentions a touch lavished solely upon him, the only one in your heart. For that was what he had always been, and always was. Lonely had been your dwellings before his arrival. And lonely would be the world of mortals be without you in it to illumine him. The faces he knew, the loves he once held dear—the notions of jolly times and kind deeds and good work—would be diminished in your absence, for his soul would always yearn, knowing not what it yearned for. If he were to lose the grace he found now, would he ever recover from it?
You could see the way such feverish thoughts contorted in his white face. Away, away was the mortal realm, fading swiftly the closer you came to him. Forgone was Brandy Hall, and a distant sigh of the wind was Buckland, flickering away from his memories, vanishing even the strength and will to remember them. His heart was pending purely from your hands, now, where it would be encasketed as your Eternal Divine.
That quietly-arriving choice was not uttered. It came through the way his eyelids faltered, and his body arched against yours, with his hands reclaiming the one you had over his chest while his eyes closed in wait.
There was a mutual exhale of relief as you shrank the distance and pressed a kiss charged with the perfume of thorn apple and the taste of bluebell to his lips. The boundary tremored, reshaping underneath you as the veil was cast aside, and for a moment, you were both suspended in the in-between, somewhere and nowhere at once. His breath grazed your face, warmth and a touch of laughter present in the curve of his mouth, and a s sense of mirth about him at the consummation of the inborn fate that flourished in the touch of your skin against his.
He took a step across the boundary, and then, another. Mortal light left his countenance, lit instead by the soft glow of all that belongs to the realm of Eternity, which does not cast shadow. The want for things of Matter no longer was reflected in his gaze, and what remained was the loveliness of his soul, pristine and unaltered by the loss of all that he ever knew.
"Let this be my promise," he said, holding up your hand, and brushing his lips against your knuckles in an amorous peck, "that I will give back tenfold for all the favor that I receive from thee, and that I will not renounce what has been gifted to me. That I am to be this Meriadoc of yours for all of time…" He paused, and his brows furrowed as he reconsidered. "…Or outside of it, I suppose?"
You laughed, and your laughter bounced through the meadow like moonlight on a mirror. Soon, he would not think anymore of what had been left behind. He would live like a creature that had always existed Hither instead of Thither, amidst the bluebells and thorn apples, forever doused by the caress of the moondust that wafted from Thither, and forever serenated into sleep by starlight. And the creatures of Hither would know him as their Lord, to whom they were to pay their respects to, from the smallest of frolicking butterflies to the beings unseen and unnamed and untought of by mortal minds. He would be Meriadoc, the merriest of all the inhabitants of the realm of Eternity and Beyond. Your Merry, merry outside of Time.
"At the bidding of Turgon Círdan built seven swift ships, and they sailed out into the West; but no tidings of them came ever back to Balar, save of one, and the last. The mariners of that ship toiled long in the sea, and returning at last in despair they foundered in a great storm within sight of the coasts of Middle-earth; but one of them was saved by Ulmo from the wrath of Ossë, and the waves bore him up, and cast him ashore in Nevrast. His name was Voronwë; and he was one of those that Turgon sent forth as messengers from Gondolin."
- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion, "Of the Fifth Battle: Nirnaeth Arnoediad"
@esotolkienweek day 2: seas, voyage ⇢ TURGON'S EMBASSIES TO VALINOR
[J.R.R. Tolkien, Unfinished Tales // William Cowper, "The Castaway" // J.M.W Turner, "Snow Storm - Steam-Boat off a Harbour’s Mouth" // William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night // J.R.R. Tolkien, Unfinished Tales // Ivan Aivazovsky, "The Wave" // William Shakespeare, The Tempest // Norman Lindsay, "Shipwreck with Sirens" // J.R.R. Tolkien, Unfinished Tales, // Gordon Lightfoot, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" // J.R.R. Tolkien, Unfinished Tales // Théodore Gericault, "The Wreck"]
kianamaiart
snowghoul
kaledo-art
germansingergirl
yousharknotpass
izzy806
theartofmadeline
dailybridgerton
